


Always Almost

by SereneCalamity



Category: IT (2017), IT - Stephen King
Genre: 5+1 Things, Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, Idiots in Love, M/M, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-12
Updated: 2017-11-12
Packaged: 2019-02-01 03:42:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,464
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12696606
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SereneCalamity/pseuds/SereneCalamity
Summary: Five times Eddie and Richie almost kiss. And then one time it was fixed.





	Always Almost

**Author's Note:**

> So this was meant to be an easy 2k write.  
> Clearly it got away from me...  
> Disclaimer: I do not own the characters.

1.

They were down at the quarry, and it was the last weekend before they were started Middle School. William 'Bill' Denbrough had rounded them all up that morning and said that they needed to go and enjoy one last day of freedom. Ben Hanscom wasn't to enthusiastic about going down, saying that he wanted to finish off his summer reading list before they started school again, but Richie Tozier had called him a fucking nerd, crumbled the reading list into a ball and thrown it across the bedroom.

The quarry was empty, except for a family with two kids who were down in the shallow end, which was thankfully not where the boys were swimming around. Although, sound definitely traveled across the water and bounced off the rocks surrounding the watering hole, and the family left pretty soon after the boys got there, directly after Richie and Edward 'Eddie' Kaspbrak got into a splashing match where they were trying to dunk each other underwater and swearing their heads off at each other.

Bill and Stanley 'Stan' Uris were the first ones to leave the quarry, just after four. About twenty minutes later, Ben checked the waterproof watch around his wrist and said that he better be heading off as well, and mumbled something under his breath about needing to find where Richie had thrown the reading list.

That left Richie and Eddie alone at the quarry.

Eddie was smaller than the rest of his friends, and smaller by quite a bit. Stan was definitely the skinniest of them all, and Bill was the most pale, but Eddie was short, and he had delicate features. Despite how Richie treated him when they were fooling around, he felt protective toward him, and didn't treat him quite as roughly as he acted like he did.

"Come on, Eds," Richie said as he got up, grabbing for one of his brightly coloured shirts. "We better get you home," he sneered playfully at Eddie as the smaller boy got to his feet and walked over to where his clothes were folded neatly on one of the flat rocks. "Don't want widdle Eddie getting a cold before school starts."

"Shut up," Eddie grumbled as he quickly dressed. It _was_ starting to get a bit colder, there was a bit of a bite in the air. He was straightening up from putting on his sandals when he realized that Richie was right in front of him. There was something about Richie's face that stopped Eddie from snapping at him for breaking into his personal space bubble, something softer.

"You've, uh..." Richie swallowed hard, and Eddie's eyes flickered over his face as Richie lifted his hand. "You've got some sand in your hair." Richie brushed his fingers through Eddie's thick hair, the pads of his fingers stroking gently over Eddie's scalp before letting his arm drop back at his side. Eddie stared up at Richie, surprised at the gentleness that he had completed his action, his lips parting in surprise. Richie's head tilted forward ever so slightly, and Eddie's breathing quickened.

It was the first time in Eddie's short life that he had considered kissing someone.

It was strange, but it hadn't really shocked him that it was a boy.

But then there was a particularly strong gust of wind that made Eddie shiver and Richie had pulled backwards, letting out one of his obnoxious laughs and lifting his hand again to ruffle Eddie's hair, saying that they needed to get back home because he had a dinner date with Eddie's mum that he couldn't miss.

Eddie had just rolled his eyes, trying to ignore how fast his heart was beating.

2.

It was nearly a year later when Richie and Eddie almost kissed again. They were thirteen, Richie was only a few months off being fourteen. Eddie had actually kissed a few people already and Richie had at least kissed a few. He played off as though he had done a whole lot more than kissing when they were all in their group of friends, but Richie already had quite a reputation as a trashmouth, so they weren't entirely certain about how much of it was sure, other than the two kisses they had witnessed themselves.

Eddie had kissed two girls, Lindsay Kerr and Greta Bowie. Lindsay was a pretty girl who he had met when he was staying with his cousins in Boston for the holidays. She had been nice, and she wore her hair in pigtails, and it had been nice, but nothing amazing. Greta was a popular girl in their grade at school who was also a bit of a bitch. She had been playing truth or dare with her friends, and Eddie hadn't even known what was happening until she had stormed over and grabbed his shirt, smacking a kiss down on his lips so awkwardly that his nose stung for a few hours afterward.

His third kiss had been with a curly haired boy, Aaron Thrall, who played guitar and was only at their school for five months. And it had been the best of the three.

It had only been a couple of months after that that Eddie had come to the realization that he was gay, and he was okay with that.

Richie's kisses had both been with girls. One ginger haired girl that wore skirts so short they barely reached her thighs and always hung out at the skate park, and the second had been Greta as well, although his hadn't been because of a dare. Eddie and the rest of Richie's friends weren't too sure how it had happened, but it was after gym class, and they kissed for a lot longer than Eddie's had been, and Richie's glasses were steamed up after.

"You've kissed a dude, right?" Richie asked and Eddie's eyes widened as he looked toward the lounge door where his mother was. Just because he was okay with the fact he liked guys, didn't mean it was something that he had discussed with his mother. He had no idea how she would react, and he figured he had years before it really mattered anyway.

"Keep your fucking voice _down_ ," Eddie hissed as he stretched to try and get the Pringles from the shelf. Richie easily reached passed him and grabbed the tube of chips, handing them over to Eddie and tilting his head to the side, resting his arm on the bench beside his friend. "And you know I have."

"What's it like?" Richie continued, his voice blunt. Eddie had been about to pop the lid off the Pringles but faltered at Richie's question. Richie's eyes were wide and sincere and there was a slight flush to his cheeks.

"It's..." Eddie paused and made a face. "I don't know. It's the same as kissing a girl," he shrugged and concentrated back on the chips, finally getting the lid off and ripping off the foil cover. "But I like it better." He pulled out a chip and then tipped the tube toward Richie in offer. Richie took a handful of chips, a thoughtful expression on his face as looked down at the chips.

"Better?" He asked.

"Yeah, better," Eddie huffed, shifting from foot to foot. "Why do you care anyway?" Richie's lips parted and he seemed to be at a loss for words. His eyes moved down to Eddie's mouth, watching the way they moved and shaped as he licked them. Eddie's eyebrows pulled together as he watched a look of confusion flicker across Richie's face, quickly followed by embarrassment as Eddie's mum shouted in the lounge that she wanted another orange juice.

"Just wondering why you've decided you like cock over pussy!" Richie laughed and Eddie rolled his eyes, putting the chips on the bench and walking to the fridge to get the orange juice for the mother.

3.

The third time was different.

It was different because Eddie knew he liked Richie.

He wasn't sure how or when it happened, it kind of just snuck up on him. One day, they were all sitting on the field during their lunch break, and Richie was snapping at the coloured bands around his wrist, and Eddie was trying not to breathe too deeply or else his hay fever would start playing up. He looked over at Richie, and Richie was staring at him, and there was just this weird _moment_ where Eddie _knew_ that he liked Richie—had liked him for some time.

There was a new girl who had joined their class, with short red hair and sparkling eyes, and Richie seemed to like her. She was into the same bands that he was and she had a similar dirty sense of humor. They would sit in the back of English class sharing headphones from her iPod and humming along to the music.

Eddie instantly disliked her, even though the rest of his friends seemed to fall for her pretty quickly, and he knew that it was just because he was jealous. He tried to shove it down and get along with her, but he couldn't help the gnawing feeling in the pit of his stomach.

It was the first time that they had all been to Beverly Marsh's apartment, which was a bit of a mess, but nowhere near as chaotic as Richie's. The boys all crowded into the lounge while she got them some bags of chips from the kitchen, and turned on the TV, finding a channel that was playing _Friends_ re-runs. It was getting late on a Friday night, and it was darkening outside, so Beverly and Ben pulled the curtains shut, so that the only light was coming from the TV. Everyone was making themselves comfortable, except for Eddie.

He didn't want to sit on the floor, like he did when he was at his house or at Bills, because he knew that those floors were _clean_ and _freshly_ _vacuumed_ , but there were already some crumbs on the carpet that looked as though they had been there for a few days. He couldn't sit on the couch either, because Richie had claimed the big arm chair, and Ben, Bill, Stan and Beverly had squeezed together on the couch.

"Aw, come on, Eddie Spaghetti!" Richie called out, wiggling his eyebrows in a way that was probably meant to be seductive. "There's a seat _right here_ ," he smoothed his hands up and down his lap.

"I can move. You can sit here," Beverly offered with a smile, but Eddie wasn't sure what that meant. Was she going to move and sit on the floor, or was she going to move and take up Richie's offer?

"It's fine," Eddie said quickly, moving over to quickly plop himself down on Eddie's lap without giving him a chance to overthink it. Richie must have been surprised that Eddie had actually sat down, because he didn't say anything, his hands resting lightly on Eddie's lap. Halfway through the episode of _Friends_ , Bill and Beverly got into an argument over who Rachel would have been better with, Ross or Joey, and Richie stayed surprisingly quiet. His hands never moved from Eddie's side, and but his fingers twitched every few moments, the ADHD stopping him from being able to keep still. Eddie didn't mind though.

"Do we want to order pizza?" Beverly asked after a few hours, and there were cheers of agreement from the boys in the room. Surprisingly, Richie didn't shove Eddie off his lap, usually he was the first one to get up when food was mentioned.

"Just get me a pepperoni," Richie piped up, the volume of his voice nowhere near as loud as it usually was.

"Should we go to the dairy and get some drinks as well?" Ben suggested.

"I'll come," Beverly flashed a wide smile, and there was a look exchanged between the two that made Eddie tilt his head to the side. Maybe it _wasn't_ Richie that Beverly liked. Stan decided that he'd be the one to the make the order, Beverly and Ben left and said they'd be back in ten minutes, and Bill trailed after Stan to the kitchen, saying that he would get plates and things while Stan ordered, leaving Richie and Eddie alone in the lounge, with the TV playing quietly.

There were spaces to sit now, the couch was free, but Eddie didn't want to move. Richie's fingers were flexing at Eddie's hips, even though he could have been resting them on the arms of the chair. The longer they sat there, the more tense the silence became, and Eddie could feel his whole body stiffening, his spine ramrod straight as he sat in his best friends lap. They could hear their friends talking in the kitchen, and there was the noise coming from the TV, but usually when Richie was in a room, there was _so much sound_. And when it was Richie and Eddie, there were mainly arguments, or at the very least, some noisy banter.

Eddie felt Richie shift his position, moving forward so that he was no longer leaning back into the cushions of the arm chair, and he was leaning forward so that his chest bumped against Eddie's back. Eddie was hyper-aware of every movement that Richie made, and he felt goosebumps break out across his skin, down his arms, as he felt Richie's breath on the back of his neck. He was pretty sure he felt the bump of Richie's nose against the base of his neck and it sent a shiver through Eddie.

"Eds?" Richie asked, his voice so soft that it made Eddie's body tense _even more_. "I was...I was wondering..." Eddie wasn't sure if he should turn around and face Richie, because he didn't want to throw Richie off whatever he was saying, but he _really_ wanted to see his face. When Richie fell quiet, Eddie twisted his body, looking over his shoulder so that he could see most of Richie's face. His eyes were wide behind his glasses, and his lips were red, as though he had been biting and licking at them.

They looked spit-slick, and usually the idea of someone elses saliva made Eddie want to go and wash his mouth out, but this time it made Eddie want to lunge in and kiss him. He thought about how Richie's mouth would slide against his own, and then how he wanted to mix their saliva together, trace Richie's lips with his own tongue.

"Eds..." Richie began again, and he moved a little closer, so that his nose brushed against Eddie's cheek. Richie didn't say anything else, just moved his face ever so slightly, so that his nose moved down, toward Eddie's jaw, and then there was a sharp intake of breath as his face tipped backwards, so that it was his lips that were brushing against Eddie's cheek. Richie's fingers tightened on Eddie's hips, and Eddie's neck was sore from having it twisted around at such an awkward angle, but there was no way in hell he was going to move and break the moment. "Eddie, I—"

"Alright! Pizza is..." Stan drifted off as he came back into the room with Bill close behind him, and his eyebrows pulled together. "What are you doing?" He asked Eddie, who was now sprawled out on the floor, given he and Richie had sprung apart and Eddie had launched himself off Richie's lap and onto the ground.

"Nothing!" Came the instant reply from both Richie and Eddie. Stan and Bill didn't look convinced, but they shrugged and took a seat on the couch, turning the volume of the TV back up.

4.

It was the fourth of July, and the whole gang was over at Bill's house to watch the fireworks that were being let off around the neighbourhood. Bill and Stan were laying on the trampoline that Georgie was usually boncing all over, and the two fifteen year olds were paying absolutely no attention to the fireworks that were happening, too caught up in each other. They had officially gotten together a few weeks before, and they were almost unbareable to be around.

Mike, Ben and Beverly were on an old couch that they had gotten out of the garage, and even in the sporadic, exploding lights that were going off in the sky above them, it was obvious that Ben's cheeks were red. Maybe that was because Beverly had had her hand resting on his thigh for the past half an hour.

Richie and Eddie were up the big tree in the corner of Bill's yard, out on a branch, looking up at the fireworks through the leaves of the tree. Eddie wasn't particularly happy with being up the tree, but Richie had goaded him, not leaving him alone until Eddie had thrown his hands up in the air and let out a loud huff and had begrudgingly climbed the tree. He had managed to scrape his knee, but there were only a few drops of blood, and he wanted to go inside to put some disinfectant and a bandaid over it, but Richie had rolled his eyes, grabbed his arm, and jerked him up onto the branch.

It wasn't that high off the ground, and it really wasn't that scary, but that hadn't stopped Eddie's heart from thundering in his chest. Richie had shuffled along the branch a little to let Eddie sit next to the trunk of the tree, and both of their legs were dangling down, occasionally brushing as they swung back and forth.

"They're really pretty," Eddie mumble as a gold and blue explosion lit up the sky above them. Eddie didn't like being right in front of the fireworks when they were being lit up, because the smoke could sometimes trigger his asthma, and he freaked out about when the sparks would hit the ground that they would start a fire, but he loved watching them from a distance.

"Yeah, real pretty," Richie's voice was so quiet that Eddie barely heard him, and he glanced sideways at Richie, an was surprised when he saw that Richie's eyes were on him. And not in the way that looked as though he had just looked his way while talking, it seemed as though Richie had been watching him for a while. Eddie's eyebrows pulled together in surprise and he tilted his head to the side.

"Is everything okay?" Eddie asked softly. Richie swallowed hard and he shifted his hand so that his fingers were overlapping with where Eddie's were resting on the branch. Eddie's eyes widened and his breathing quickened. Richie's eyes were big behind his glasses, almost comically large, and his lips were parted, a hint of his crooked teeth. His curly hair was falling over his forehead and there was a single curl that was hanging lower that the others, behind his glasses and over one eye. There were fireworks exploding, but there were sparks flying that had absolutely nothing to do with them happening between the two teenagers.

Eddie let got of the trunk that he had been clinging to with the hand that wasn't on the branch—now underneath Richie's—and carefully began moving it. His eyes kept shifting, between the curl hanging in front of his eye and his mouth. Richie was leaning in, and Eddie's heart was thundering and his stomach was squeezing so tight that he really hoped he wasn't going to throw up all over his friend. Eddie began leaning in, the hand that had been steadying himself on the trunk of the tree reaching over, his intention to push away that curl on his friends face.

He wanted to feel if Richie's hair was as silky as it looked.

Unfortunately, there was a yell from Bev, below them, as a firework went off particularly close, and it startled Eddie. His eyes widened for a completely other reason as his body jerked and the hand that had been keeping his balance, but the hand was in the air now, and Richie let out a shout, his arms flailing as he tried to grab the younger boy.

But Eddie fell from the tree, landing on his arm awkwardly, and the night ending abruptly with a pissed off Mrs Kaspbrak coming to the Denbrough house to pick Eddie up and take him to hospital.

5.

It was a month later, and they were at a sixteenth birthday for one of the boys in their grade at school. Eddie didn't really know the guy, but Mike played football with him, and he insisted that all his friends come along. Richie had managed to smuggle a bottle of bourbon from his parents, and Bill's dad let him take a couple of bottles of beer, as long as he promised not to have more than that. Bev wasn't interested at all in drinking, and Ben had admitted to Stan and Eddie yesterday that he wasn't going to drink because he didn't want to risk acting like a complete idiot in front of Bev.

Eddie still had a cast on his arm, given what had happened on the fourth of July, and his friends had all signed it, and a couple of his classmates. Greta had also signed it, but she had written in big, black vivid LOSER. Eddie had been pissed, and Richie had surprised him with a red vivid, going over the S and changing it to V, making the smaller boy blush.

"Come on! Come on, Eds!" Richie demanded.

"Don't _call_ me that!" Eddie grumbled under his breath, but didn't stop Richie from taking his uninjured arm and pulling him down the crowded hallway to the lounge. There was a group of people already sitting on the floor, and Bev shot him a smile over her shoulder, shuffling off the cushion that she had been on.

"Don't worry," she assured him, patting it. "It's clean." Eddie didn't have those awkward feelings toward Bev anymore, since it had become obvious that she liked Ben, and she was always such a sweetheart to him, similar to Bill. He gave her a smile as he sat down, confused as to what they were doing.

"What's going on?" Eddie asked, needing to lift his voice to be heard over the music that was coming from the speakers in the corners of the room.

"T-they're p-p-playing Spin The B-Bottle," Bill explained from where he and Stan were standing behind them. Eddie attempted to scramble up from the cushion, but Bev gripped his wrist and forced him to rermain sitting.

"I _can't_ , Bev!" Eddie hissed to her.

"It'll be okay," she whispered back. Eddie's cheeks were red as he looked around the circle, and to where Richie had sat down on the opposite side of the circle from him, a wide smile on his face. There were about twelve people sitting in the circle, including Mike and Ben, and Eddie noted that including himself, there were only five boys. The rest were girls. And one of those girls was sitting right next to Richie, with a tiny pair of shorts, and she kept looking at him through her long lashes.

He was going to have to watch Richie kiss someone.

 _He_ might have to kiss someone.

Eddie swallowed hard, and attempted to make himself as small as possible, hoping that the empty pepsi bottle in the middle of the circle would miss him completely.

It was decided that Jason English was going to go first, since it was his party. That was relatively uneventful, although maybe Eddie just viewed it that way because there was only one person in this circle that he was worried about. Or, two, maybe, if he included himself. Jason kissed one of the giggling girls who was in Eddie's Biology class, and then she spun the bottle and it landed on Mike. Mike got his kiss and Eddie managed to crack a small smile when Richie let out a cheer and made a lewd gesture. Then the bottle spun and it was slowing down, and it was so close to Eddie that he really didn't know what he was going to do.

However, it landed on Bev, and she leaned forward, giving Mike a chaste kiss on his mouth. Ben didn't look very happy, but she pulled back after just a second, and Mike looked a little disgusted, like he had kissed his sister. Then it was Bev's turn, and she gave the bottle such a violent swing that it spun off centre...

...Before landing directly on Richie.

Bev tensed for a moment beside Eddie, before she leaned across the circle and gave Richie a kiss. It was similar to the kiss that she had exchanged with Mike, barely a split second, and even though Eddie felt okay about _that_ , he couldn't stop the sick feeling from gathering in his stomach as it was Richie's turn to grab the bottle.

He didn't want it to land on anyone.

He didn't want to watch Richie kiss _anyone_ else.

But...He didn't want to kiss Richie either.

Not like this.

It was like a sick joke, as the bottle spun around, slowing down before landing with the lid pointing directly at Eddie.

Eddie's mouth dropped open slightly as Bev let out a laugh and nudged him. He could hear Bill and Stan talking behind him, and Mike was wiggling his eyebrows, looking all suggestive. It felt like he had gotten tunnel vision as his eyes landed on Richie and everyone else faded away. The yelling and laughter and music from the room all got zoned out as Richie grinned, looking perfectly okay with this, and pushing the curls away from his eyes.

"C'mon, Eddie Spaghetti!" He laughed in his loud, obnoxious way. "That's us!" He leaned forward on his hands, beginning to crawl toward Eddie. Eddie was frozen in his spot, and he vaguely heard Bev saying his name. Richie was just about right in front of him, and Eddie's eyes darted down to Richie's lips, which were red from the raspberry he had been drinking, and just as they were about to land on Eddie's, the smaller boy let out a squeak, scrambled to his feet and ran from the room.

\+ 1.

"Eds!" Richie shouted out as he ran after the smaller boy. Eddie must have been moving pretty quickly because he wasn't in the hallway, and for a moment, Richie thought that he might have lost him, until Greta rolled her eyes at him and jerked her thumb in the direction of the side door, that lead out to the backyard.

"Your boyfriend went that way," she sneered. Richie didn't bother to correct her, just off-handedly pulled the fingers at her before going through the side door. There were a cluster of people just outside the door who were passing a joint around and Richie past right by them, knowing that there was no way in hell that Eddie would be sucking on the end of a joint that had touched five other people's lips. There was a couple against a tree, making out, the guy with his hand up the girls skirt, and if he wasn't so set on finding Eddie, then he would havd yelled out some lewd remark to them.

"Eddie!" Richie let out a sigh of relief when he saw the smaller boy right at the back of the yard. It was a massive backyard, so long that by the time Richie reached Eddie, who was sitting on a rickety swing, the music from the house was quite muted in the background, the arm that was in a cast resting on his lap while the other gripped the chain. "Eds—"

"Stop fucking calling me that," Eddie snapped, his eyebrows pulling together. Richie counted himself lucky that the skies were cloudless tonight, and they were only a few days past a full moon, so he could clearly see Eddie's face. It would be a lot harder to have a conversation if Richie couldn't see him.

"Come on, Eds," Richie continued, ignoring the request for the thousandth time. "Let's go back inside. The game was just getting fun," he attempted a grin as he stood in front of the swing.

"Go play the fucking game by yourself," Eddie snapped again, his voice dripping with venom. Richie felt his chest tighten at the anger he heard from his best friend, and he swallowed hard, before trying to laugh it off.

"Well, I play with myself all the time, but that's not how spin the bottle works!" He reached forward to ruffle Eddie's hair, which was getting adorably longer and starting to curl in front of his eyes. Eddie's hand came up, slapping Richie's hand away, and all pretense that Richie was trying to keep up of being in a good mood fell away, the smile dropping off his face. Eddie's eyes were big and round, and it looked as though the anger had just dropped away, replaced with hurt, which was something that Richie couldn't deal with.

"You were really going to let our first kiss be like that?" He asked, his voice so soft that it caught in the breeze, and if Richie hadn't been completely focussed on him, he wouldn't have heard the full question. "It's always _fucking almost_ with us, and then the first time it was actually going to happen, it was going to be _like that_?!"

"I—" Richie broke off and swallowed hard. "I don't—" he stopped again, curling his fingers into fists at his side. " _What_?!" He finally settled on.

"You were really going to let our first kiss be in a game? In front of a bunch of people we go to school with, most of who we don't even like?" Eddie repeated, and his voice was getting even smaller, and it made Richie feel like total shit.

"No, I—" Richie rolled his eyes upwards and licked his lips, missing the way that Eddie followed the path of his tongue. He took in a deep breath before looking back at Eddie. "Why didn't you tell me that you wanted me to kiss you? I would have fucking kissed you a hundred times by now, Eds!"

"Don't be a fucking idiot, Tozier!" Eddie sounded as though he was back to being angry. "You fucking know how I feel about you!" Richie faltered, blinking at the smaller boy and his flashing eyes. "You _know_ I've been in fucking love with you since I was seven years old! That was one of the first things I ever said to you! _Everyone_ knows I'm in fucking love with you!" Eddie was still ranting but Richie was just staring at him with wide eyes behind his glasses. He remembered Eddie's confession when they were seven. They had only known each other for about a week, and Eddie was pretty quiet as he got used to the louder boy who didn't wash his hands before every meal and wiped his nose on the sleeve of his shirt. Richie remembered Eddie came into school at the end of the week and he had tissues and anti-bacterial wipes stocked up in his bag, and he had said 'If I'm going to love you, Richie Tozier then we need to make some changes'. Richie had laughed at first, but he had used the tissues and the wet wipes on a daily basis since. "—And then you decide to be a total and complete asshole and make our first kiss all part of a stupid, fucking game—"

Eddie was cut off.

He was cut off by Richie's lips, smushing down unceremoniously against Eddie's. There was absolutely no grace about it, which was about the same in everything that Richie did, but—just like everything _Eddie_ did when it came to Richie—he made it work. He smoothed over the harsher edges that Richie had, he mellowed it out, he slowed it down...He made it perfect. He returned the pressure and eased Richie's mouth open, curling his tongue around the Richie's and forced him to slow the kiss that Richie had started so abruptly.

When they pulled apart, Eddie's eyes were still closed, his eyelashes flickering against his cheeks, and Richie couldn't stop himself from leaning in for one last kiss, just a chaste brush of the lips before pulling back.

"I fucking love you too, Eds," Richie murmured, his smile so wide it almost broke his face in two. It took a beat, as Eddie opened his eyes and focused on the taller boy, but then a gorgeous smile stretched across his face as well, matching Richie's, and Richie couldn't stop himself from leaning back down to kiss Eddie again.

**Author's Note:**

> Let me know what you think!  
> I absolutely love these two and the feedback keeps me writing ;)


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